Nuclear Power: An Option for the Army's Future

by Robert A. Pfeffer and William A. Macon, Jr.

The Army Transformation initiative of
Chief of Staff General Eric K. Shinseki represents a
significant change in how the Army will be structured and
conduct operations. Post-Cold War threats have
forced Army leaders to think "outside the box" and
develop the next-generation Objective Force, a lighter and
more mobile fighting army that relies heavily on
technology and joint-force support. More changes can be
anticipated. As we consider what the Army might look
like beyond the Objective Force of 2010, nuclear power
could play a major role in another significant change: the
shift of military energy use away from carbon-based
resources. Nuclear reactor technology could be used
to generate the ultimate fuels for both vehicles and
people: environmentally neutral hydrogen for equipment fuel
and potable water for human consumption.

Evolving Energy Sources

Over the centuries, energy sources have been moving away from carbon and toward pure hydrogen.
Wood (which has about 10 carbon atoms for every
hydrogen atom) remained the primary source of energy until
the 1800s, when it was replaced with coal (which has 1 or
2 carbon atoms for every hydrogen atom). In less
than 100 years, oil (with two hydrogen atoms for every
carbon atom) began to replace coal. Within this first
decade of the new millennium, natural gas (with four
hydrogen atoms for every carbon atom) could very
well challenge oil's dominance.

In each case, the natural progression has been
from solid, carbon-dominated, dirty fuels to more
efficient, cleaner-burning hydrogen fuels. Work already is
underway to make natural gas fuel cells the next
breakthrough in portable power. However, fuel cells are
not the final step in the evolution of energy sources,
because even natural gas has a finite supply. Fuel cells are
merely another step toward the ultimate energy source,
seawater, and the ultimate fuel derived from it, pure
hydrogen (H2).

Environmental Realities

There are three geopolitical energy facts that increasingly are affecting the long-term plans of most
industrialized nations

Worldwide coal reserves are decreasing. At
the present rate of consumption, geological evidence
indicates that worldwide low-sulfur coal reserves
could be depleted in 20 to 40 years. This rate of
depletion could accelerate significantly as China, India, and
other Third World countries industrialize and use more coal.

Most major oil reserves have been discovered
and are controlled by just a few OPEC [Organization of
Petroleum-Exporting Countries] nations. Some of
these reserves are now at risk; Bahrain, for example,
estimates that its oil reserves will be depleted in 10 to 13 years
at the current rate of use.

The burning of carbon-based fuels continues to
add significant pollutants to the atmosphere.

These and other socioeconomic pressures are
forcing nations to compete for finite energy sources for
both fixed-facility and vehicle use. For the United
States, the demand for large amounts of cheap fuel to
generate electricity for industry and fluid fuel to run vehicles
is putting considerable pressure on energy experts to
look for ways to exploit alternate energy sources. The
energy crisis in California could be the harbinger of
things to come. The threat to affordable commercial
power could accelerate development of alternative fuels. It
is here that private industry may realize that the
military's experience with small nuclear power plants could
offer an affordable path to converting seawater into fuel.

Military Realities

Today, the military faces several post-Cold War realities. First, the threat has changed. Second,
regional conflicts are more probable than all-out war. Third,
the United States will participate in joint and coalition
operations that could take our forces anywhere in the
world for undetermined periods of time. Finally, the U.S.
military must operate with a smaller budget and force
structure. These realities already are forcing
substantial changes on the Army.

So, as we consider future Army energy sources,
we foresee a more mobile Army that must deploy
rapidly and sustain itself indefinitely anywhere in the world
as part of a coalition force. In addition, this future
Army will have to depend on other nations to provide at
least some critical logistics support. An example of such
a cooperative effort was Operation Desert Storm,
where coalition forces (including the United States) relied
on some countries to supply potable water and other
countries to provide fuel. This arrangement allowed
U.S. cargo ships to concentrate on delivering weapon
systems and ammunition.

But consider the following scenario. The U.S.
military is called on to suppress armed conflict in a
far-off region. The coalition forces consist of the United
States and several Third World countries in the region that
have a vested interest in the outcome of the conflict.
Our other allies are either unwilling or unable to support
the regional action, either financially or militarily. The
military effort will be a challenge to support over time,
especially with such basic supplies as fuel and water.
How can the United States sustain its forces?

One way to minimize the logistics challenge is
for the Army to produce fuel and potable water in, or
close to, the theater. Small nuclear power plants could
convert seawater into hydrogen fuel and potable water
where needed, with less impact on the environment than
caused by the current production, transportation, and use of
carbon-based fuels.

Seawater: The Ultimate Energy Source

Industrial nations are seeing severe energy crises
occur more frequently worldwide, and, as world
population increases and continues to demand a higher
standard of living, carbon-based fuels will be depleted
even more rapidly. Alternative energy sources must be
developed. Ideally, these sources should be readily
available worldwide with minimum processing and be
nonpolluting. Current options include wind, solar,
hydroelectric, and nuclear energy, but by themselves they
cannot satisfy the energy demands of both large,
industrial facilities and small, mobile equipment. While each
alternative energy source is useful, none provides the
complete range of options currently offered by oil. It is
here that thinking "outside the box" is needed.

As difficult as the problem seems, there is one
energy source that is essentially infinite, is readily
available worldwide, and produces no carbon byproducts.
The source of that energy is seawater, and the
method by which seawater is converted to a more direct fuel
for use by commercial and military equipment is simple.
The same conversion process generates potable water.

Seawater Conversion Process

Temperatures greater than 1,000 degrees Celsius,
as found in the cores of nuclear reactors, combined with
a thermochemical water-splitting process, is probably
the most efficient means of breaking down water into
its component parts: molecular hydrogen and oxygen.
The minerals and salts in seawater would have to be
removed by a desalination process before the water-splitting
process and then burned or returned to the sea.

Sodium iodide (NaI) and other compounds are
being investigated as possible catalysts for
high-temperature chemical reactions with water to release the
hydrogen, which then can be contained and used as fuel.
When burned, hydrogen combines with oxygen and
produces only water and energy; no atmospheric pollutants
are created using this cycle.

Burning coal or oil to generate electricity for
production of hydrogen by electrolysis would be
wasteful and counterproductive. Nuclear power plants, on
the other hand, can provide safe, efficient, and clean
power for converting large quantities of seawater into
usable hydrogen fuel.

For the military, a small nuclear power plant could
fit on a barge and be deployed to a remote theater, where
it could produce both hydrogen fuel and potable water
for use by U.S. and coalition forces in time of conflict.
In peacetime, these same portable plants could be
deployed for humanitarian or disaster relief operations to
generate electricity and to produce hydrogen fuel and
potable water as necessary. Such dual usage (hydrogen fuel
for equipment and potable water for human
consumption) could help peacekeepers maintain a fragile peace.
These dual roles make nuclear-generated products equally
attractive to both industry and the military, and that
could foster joint programs to develop modern nuclear
power sources for use in the 21st century.

So What's Next?

The Army must plan for the time when carbon-based fuels are no longer the fuel of choice for military
vehicles. In just a few years, oil and natural gas
prices have increased by 30 to 50 percent, and, for the
first time in years, the United States last year authorized
the release of some of its oil reserves for commercial use.
As the supply of oil decreases, its value as a
resource for the plastics industry also will increase. The
decreasing supply and increasing cost of carbon-based
fuels eventually will make the hydrogen fuel and
nuclear power combination a more attractive alternative.

One proposed initiative would be for the Army to
enter into a joint program with private industry to
develop new engines that would use hydrogen fuel. In fact,
private industry already is developing prototype
automobiles with fuel cells that run on liquefied or
compressed hydrogen or methane fuel. BMW has unveiled
their hydrogen-powered 750hL sedan at the world's
first robotically operated public hydrogen fueling
station, located at the Munich, Germany, airport. This
prototype vehicle does not have fuel cells; instead, it has
a bivalent 5.4-liter, 12-cylinder engine and a
140-liter hydrogen tank and is capable of speeds up to 140
miles per hour and a range of up to 217.5 miles.

Another proposed initiative would exploit
previous Army experience in developing and using small,
portable nuclear power plants for the future production
of hydrogen and creation of a hydrogen fuel infrastructure.
Based on recent advances in small nuclear power
plant technology, it would be prudent to consider
developing a prototype plant for possible military applications.

The MH-1A Sturgis floating nuclear power plant, a 45-MW pressurized water reactor, was the
last nuclear power plant built and operated by the Army.

The Army Nuclear Power Program

The military considered the possibility of using
nuclear power plants to generate alternate fuels almost
50 years ago and actively supported nuclear energy as
a means of reducing logistics requirements for coal,
oil, and gasoline. However, political, technical, and
military considerations forced the closure of the
program before a prototype could be built.

The Army Corps of Engineers ran a Nuclear Power Program from 1952 until 1979, primarily to supply
electric power in remote areas. Stationary nuclear
reactors built at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and Fort Greeley,
Alaska, were operated successfully from the late 1950s to
the early 1970s. Portable nuclear reactors also were
operated at Sundance, Wyoming; Camp Century,
Greenland; and McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. These small
nuclear power plants provided electricity for remote
military facilities and could be operated efficiently for long
periods without refueling. The Army also considered
using nuclear power plants overseas to provide
uninterrupted power and defense support in the event that U.S.
installations were cut off from their normal logistics
supply lines.

In November 1963, an Army study submitted to
the Department of Defense (DOD) proposed employing
a military compact reactor (MCR) as the power
source for a nuclear-powered energy depot, which was
being considered as a means of producing synthetic fuels in
a combat zone for use in military vehicles. MCR
studies, which had begun in 1955, grew out of the
Transportation Corps' interest in using nuclear energy to
power heavy, overland cargo haulers in remote areas.
These studies investigated various reactor and vehicle
concepts, including a small liquid-metal-cooled reactor, but
ultimately the concept proved impractical.

The energy depot, however, was an attempt to
solve the logistics problem of supplying fuel to military
vehicles on the battlefield. While nuclear power could
not supply energy directly to individual vehicles, the
MCR could provide power to manufacture, under field
conditions, a synthetic fuel as a substitute for
conventional carbon-based fuels. The nuclear power plant would
be combined with a fuel production system to turn
readily available elements such as hydrogen or nitrogen into
fuel, which then could be used as a substitute for gasoline
or diesel fuel in cars, trucks, and other vehicles.

Of the fuels that could be produced from air and
water, hydrogenand ammonia offer the best
possibilities as substitutes for petroleum. By electrolysis or high-
temperature heat, water can be broken down into
hydrogen and oxygen and the hydrogen then used in
engines or fuel cells. Alternatively, nitrogen can be
produced through the liquefaction and fractional distillation of
air and then combined with hydrogen to form ammonia
as a fuel for internal-combustion engines.
Consideration also was given to using nuclear reactors to generate
electricity to charge batteries for electric-powered
vehiclesa development contingent on the development of
suitable battery technology.

By 1966, the practicality of the energy depot
remained in doubt because of questions about the
cost-effectiveness of its current and projected technology. The
Corps of Engineers concluded that, although feasible, the
energy depot would require equipment that probably
would not be available during the next decade. As a
result, further development of the MCR and the energy
depot was suspended until they became economically
attractive and technologically possible.

Other efforts to develop a nuclear power plant
small enough for full mobility had been ongoing since
1956, including a gas-cooled reactor combined with a closed- cycle gas-turbine generator that would be
transportable on semitrailers, railroad flatcars, or barges. The
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) supported these
developments because they would contribute to the
technology of both military and small commercial power plants.

The AEC ultimately concluded that the
probability of achieving the objectives of the Army Nuclear
Power Program in a timely manner and at a reasonable
cost was not high enough to justify continued funding of
its portion of projects to develop small, stationary,
and mobile reactors. Cutbacks in military funding for
long-range research and development because of the
Vietnam War led the AEC to phase out its support of
the program in 1966. The costs of developing and
producing compact nuclear power plants were simply so
high that they could be justified only if the reactor had a
unique capability and filled a clearly defined objective
backed by DOD. After that, the Army's participation in
nuclear power plant research and development efforts
steadily declined and eventually stopped altogether.

Nuclear Technology Today

The idea of using nuclear power to produce
synthetic fuels, originally proposed in 1963, remains feasible
today and is gaining significant attention because of
recent advances in fuel cell technology, hydrogen
liquefaction, and storage. At the same time, nuclear
power has become a significant part of the energy supply
in more than 20 countriesproviding energy security,
reducing air pollution, and cutting greenhouse gas
emissions. The performance of the world's nuclear
power plants has improved steadily and is at an all-time high.
Assuming that nuclear power experiences further
technological development and increased public
acceptance as a safe and efficient energy source, its use will
continue to grow. Nuclear power possibly could
provide district heating, industrial process heating,
desalination of seawater, and marine transportation.

Demand for cost-effective chemical fuels such
as hydrogen and methanol is expected to grow rapidly.
Fuel cell technology, which produces electricity from
low-temperature oxidation of hydrogen and yields water
as a byproduct, is receiving increasing attention.
Cheap and abundant hydrogen eventually will replace
carbon-based fuels in the transportation sector and eliminate
oil's grip on our society. But hydrogen must be
produced, since terrestrial supplies are extremely limited.
Using nuclear power to produce hydrogen offers the
potential for a limitless chemical fuel supply with near-zero
greenhouse gas emissions. As the commercial
transportation sector increasingly moves toward hydrogen fuel
cells and other advanced engine concepts to replace the
gasoline internal combustion engine, DOD eventually
will adopt this technology for its tactical vehicles.

The demand for desalination of seawater also is
likely to grow as inadequate freshwater supplies become
an urgent global concern. Potable water in the 21st
century will be what oil was in the 20th centurya
limited natural resource subject to intense international
competition. In many areas of the world, rain is not
always dependable and ground water supplies are limited,
exhausted, or contaminated. Such areas are likely to
experience conflict among water-needy peoples,
possibly prompting the deployment of U.S. ground forces
for humanitarian relief, peacekeeping, or armed
intervention. A mobile desalination plant using waste heat
from a nuclear reactor could help prevent conflicts or
provide emergency supplies of freshwater to indigenous
populations, and to U.S. deployed forces if necessary.

Promising Technology for Tomorrow

Compact reactor concepts based on
high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors are attracting attention
worldwide and could someday fulfill the role once envisioned
for the energy depot. One proposed design is the
pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) being developed by
Eskom in South Africa. Westinghouse, BNFL Instruments
Ltd., and Exelon Corporation currently are supporting
this project to develop commercial applications.

A similar design is the remote site-modular
helium reactor (RS-MHR) being developed by General
Atomics. If proven feasible, this technology could be used
to replace retiring power plants, expand the Navy's
nuclear fleet, and provide mobile electric power for military
or disaster relief operations. Ideally, modular nuclear
power plants could be operated by a small staff of
technicians and monitored by a central home office through a
satellite uplink.

The technology of both the PBMR and the RS-MHR features small, modular, helium-cooled reactors
powered by ceramic-coated fuel particles that are
inherently safe and cannot melt under any scenario. This results
in simpler plant design and lower capital costs than
existing light water reactors. The PBMR, coupled with
a direct-cycle gas turbine generator, would have a
thermal efficiency of about 42 to 45 percent and would
produce about 110 megawatts of electricity (MWe).
The smaller RS-MHR would produce about 10 to 25
MWe, which is sufficient for powering remote
communities and military bases. Multiple modules can be
installed on existing sites and refueling can be performed on
line, since the fuel pebbles recycle through the reactor
continuously until they are expended. Both designs
also feature coolant exit temperatures high enough to
support the thermochemical water-splitting cycles
needed to produce hydrogen.

For military applications, RS-MHR equipment
could be transported inland by truck or railroad, or single
modules could be built on barges and deployed as needed
to coastal regions. The Army's nuclear reactor on the
barge Sturgis, which provided electric power to the
Panama Canal from 1968 to 1976, demonstrated the
feasibility of this concept. In fact, the military previously
used several power barges (oil-fired, 30-MWe power
plants) during World War II and in Korea and Okinawa as
emergency sources of electric power.

Research teams around the world also are
examining other reactor concepts based on liquid-metal-cooled
reactor systems with conventional sodium or
lead-alloy coolants and advanced water-cooled systems. The
Department of Energy (DOE) is supporting research
and development of innovative concepts that are based
on ultra-long-life reactors with cartridge cores. These
reactors would not require refueling, and they could
be deployed in the field, removed at the end of their
service life, and replaced by a new system. The
proposed international reactor innovative and secure (IRIS)
design, funded by DOE's Nuclear Energy Research
Initiative, would have a straight burn core lasting 8 years
and may be available by 2010. Based on increasing costs
of fossil fuels, a growing consensus that greenhouse
gas emissions must be reduced, and a growing demand
for energy, there is little doubt that we will continue to
see significant advances in nuclear energy research and
development.

Nuclear power is expected to grow in the 21st
century, with potential benefits applicable to the military.
Small, modular nuclear power reactors in mobile or
portable configurations, coupled with hydrogen
production and desalination systems, could be used to produce
fuel and potable water for combat forces deployed in
remote areas and reduce our logistics requirements.
Assuming the inevitability of hydrogen fuel replacing fossil
fuels, a clearly defined objective that was missing in 1966
now exists.

The partnership between DOD and the former AEC to develop Army nuclear reactors contributed to the
technology of both military and small commercial
power plants. This historical relationship should be
renewed based on recent technological advances and
projected logistics requirements. DOD logistics planners
should reconsider military applications of nuclear power
and support ongoing DOE research and development
initiatives to develop advanced reactors such as RS-MHR, IRIS, and others. For the Army to fight and win
on tomorrow's distant battlefields, nuclear power will
have to play a significant role.

Would this necessarily lead to a rebirth of the
old Army Nuclear Power Program, with soldiers trained
as reactor operators and reactor facilities managed by
the Corps of Engineers? Probably not. A more likely
scenario would be a small fleet of nuclear power barges
or other portable power plant configurations developed
by DOE, operated and maintained by Government
technicians or civilian contractors, and deployed as
necessary to support the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, the Department of State, and DOD. Construction,
licensing, refueling, and decommissioning issues
would be managed best under DOE stewardship or
Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversight. As an end user
of these future nuclear reactors, however, the Army
should understand their proposed capabilities and
limitations and provide planners with appropriate military
requirements for their possible deployment to a combat zone.

Robert A. Pfeffer is a physical scientist at the
Army Nuclear and Chemical Agency in Springfield,
Virginia, working on nuclear weapons effects. He is a
graduate of Trinity University and has a master's degree
in physics from The Johns Hopkins University.
Previous Government experience includes Chief of
the Electromagnetic Laboratory at Harry Diamond Laboratories (HDL) in Adelphi, Maryland, and
Chief of the HDL Woodbridge Research Facility in Virginia.

William A. Macon, Jr., is a project manager at
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He was
formerly the acting Army Reactor Program Manager at
the Army Nuclear and Chemical Agency. He is a
graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and has a
master's degree in nuclear engineering from Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute. His military assignments
included Assistant Brigade S4 in the 1st Armored Division.